You may have heard about the fight between “The Dude” aka Jeff Dowd and John Anderson, film critic at Sundance. If you haven’t been following our coverage on The MCN Sundance Blog, here is a look at our re-creation, co-starring who else but Michael Jai White… and Dowd’s detailed explanation, after the jump…
(quite low in volume for the first minute)
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
You’re enabling Dowd to do more harm to this movie than any bad review ever could, and that really makes me feel sorry for the filmmakers.
Maybe the movie works so badly that nobody wants to review it, but it seems like a really good book to me (so does the writer’s book about
the the Oak Tree). Agnes Varnum (btw, I like her Sundance round-up piece) opens her review of Dirt saying she doesn’t normally write about movies she doesn’t like, which can only mean she’s making an exception for this one, because, well, read it for yourself.
http://agnesvarnum.com/2009/01/20/sundance-09-dirt-the-movie/
In response to a comment at Anne Thompson’s site:
Check out Roger Ebert’s take on the Dowd/Anderson fight, complete with The Dude’s video of his experience:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/01/dude_wheres_my_breakfast.html
I replied:
No, here’s the The Dude’s video of his experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZUbAbo5uvY
I know I’d have felt very threatened if Dowd sat down at my table, whether he were speaking to me or I were a guest at the table or one nearby. Aren’t restaurants supposed to throw people out who are harassing customers not twice, but thrice? Can’t someone defend themselves and/or their guests if the restaurant doesn’t?
I offered the youtube video to someone as a scoop, since no one has put it up yet and the reply was, in part, “this is like Exhibit A for the permanent closure of YouTube.”
I don’t get why? A man explains how he threatened another man. And puts a website address at the end, not of the movie, but of Jackie Martlins joke site.
Having crossed paths with The Dude a time or two, what most impressed me about him was 1) his ability to suck all the oxygen out of the room, 2) his unfailing knack for making everyone else in the room sounds like a moron, and 3) his reputation, which is rather out of proportion to his resume. Frankly, I’m amazed no one’s taken a swing at him before now.
Yeah… that video was shot at Tom Bernard’s birthday party, drunk, the next night after we shot both our re-creation and the explanation.
It’s Jackie’s edit.
Jeff told me about it yesterday, but I hadn’t tracked it down.
What’s the difference? He says the same thing in yours.
As Tim at Anne’s said, “intimidation is violence with or without fists.”
Intimidation, or feeling threatened or having people at your table being subjected to it, is violence, with or without fists.
Even if someone were interested in reviewing the movie at Spout or All These Wonderful Things or indieWIRE, I don’t think they would out of fear.
So aside from the movie being harmed in more ways than a bad review ever could hurt it, there’s residual cost to freedom of the press and critics.
What was Michael Barker thinking appearing at the end of the youtube video? He’s the one bemoaning the loss of critics to the indie world in part one of The Sundance Panic Button Panel here:
http://trulyfreefilm.blogspot.com/2009/01/sundance-panic-button-panel.html
Again, TH… this was a home video at a birthday party… neither Michael Barker or Tom Bernard were making intentional appearances expecting this to be on the web.
As for intimidation… if you find Dowd intimidating, then you are a wimp. He is a gentle giant who can be as loud and fierce as anyone, which can irritate… but to keep a critic from reviewing… really?
You’re right Dave, Tom Bernard makes no appearance, Dowd just says in your video that he ran into Jackie Martling and says Jackie said he’ll call his friend Tom and tell him he should buy the movie. And Barker didn’t make an intentional appearance, but he’s there and he was on the Panic Button panel.
You and I will never agree that Dowd is describing an act of intimidation especially at 4:45 on the youtube video.
I doubt anyone other than Agnes Varnum was interested in reviewing the movie, and I seriously doubt anyone will have the guts to do it now because the Dude is too famous.
Tom is in the Martling video you linked to… watch it again if you didn’t see him the first time.
Then they can use the birthday money to make a four figure offer to Dowd to buy the movie, who needs a good review?
If Anne Thompson is being let go as Nikki Finke is saying, she’d do incredible PR work for a movie; I’d never, ever hire Dowd.
I’ve got a great idea — send the Sundance cut to Roger Ebert and see if he’ll give it thumbs up.
I’ve sent this request along to Roger Ebert:
There’s one way to solve this — Dowd or Cottrell sends you a cut of the movie shown at Sundance, and you determine the best way for you to write an honest review and share it with us.
Review sounds similar to Varnum; doesn’t have the quality Dowd tried to influence but ultimately suppressed, and this contains info that the other wouldn’t have mentioned. Walk-outs are as irrelevant as Q&A’s or even “testimonials” by the flock. (This one mentions the educational circuit
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939499.html?categoryid=31&cs=1). I think there could be a festival strategy, have to consult the book Dowd was interviewed for that he thought would get him tit for tat.
If “Crude” starts off well and falters in the end, “Dirt! The Movie” goes the opposite direction.
No movie I’ve attended at this year’s Festival has had more early walk-outs and I can’t say I necessarily blame them. “Dirt!” begins with one talking head after another raving about “The Earth’s Skin.” The early process of raving about soil and its impact on all of our lives is redundant — Yes, dirt’s alive, get it — and also silly, like the wine expert who explains that really oenology is about the dirt and proceeds to walk around noshing on it.
What directors Bill Beneson and Gene Rosow are doing, though, is the documentary equivalent of the rudimentary five-paragraph argumentative essay most people were taught in high school. They begin with generalities and frivolity, but their focus rapidly tightens. Soon we’re learning about how farming and agriculture effect soil. The answer? Badly. That expands to what the destruction of dirt does to humans. The answer? Drought, famine and war. It’s reductive, but it’s also persuasive. And finally, having painted a persuasive apocalyptic picture, the film closes with a long section on reclaiming the Earth, on things people can do in their own communities to bring dirt back.
And darned if I wasn’t moved by the prisoners at Riker’s Island talking about how gardening had changed their lives. And darned if I wasn’t impressed at the woman in New York City trying to bring patches of green to rooftops and sidewalks. The people making houses out of dung? That touched me a bit less.
“Dirt!” isn’t going to win converts with its artistry, though a few animated sequences feature a cute and expressive dirt blob, but it has a clear thesis which it pursues with clarity. At the very least, and this shouldn’t be considered an insult, “Dirt! The Movie” should provide teachable moments for high school and college classrooms for years to come. There’s nothing wrong with that.
by Daniel Fienberg
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-the-fien-print/posts/2009-1-23-sundance-reviews-crude-and-dirt-the-movie?comment_id=510&page=1